Age of Conan nets 700,000 subscribers

Funcom has sent out its latest chest-beating press release for its MMO Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, announcing the creation of an impressive 700,000 player accounts for the month-old game.

To put that in perspective: long-running space-trading cult EVE Online is known to have around 250,000 active player accounts, while World of Warcraft famously has 10 million. Korean hits Lineage and Lineage II are thought to have around a million subscribers apiece.

Funcom also boasted that "it is also clear that Age of Conan has taken the position as the undisputed #2 subscription MMO in the Western world".

There are some who might dispute that. Created accounts are not the same as active ones; not all of those 700,000 players have necessarily chosen to continue playing the game. What's more, a great many of the accounts that are still active will still be on their free trial period of 30 days - so their owners are not committed subscribers yet.

Meanwhile, British developer Jagex claims to have over a million paying accounts for its Java-based MMO RuneScape.

We won't know the real picture of Age of Conan's success for a few months yet, but it's clear the game is off to a strong start. We'll be following its development closely on Eurogamer MMO.